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Category: Graphics

Articles and tutorials on designing in Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator and Fireworks. Free icons, textures, PSDs and other similar resources are featured here, as well as showcases of photography and video. This is also the place that hosts our regular Desktop Wallpaper Calendar series.

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Today we are glad to release a Free Medical Icons Set, a set with 60 original medical icons in .png 32 bit in resolutions 32×32px and 128×128px. This set was designed by the user interface design agency Centigrade and released exclusively for Smashing Magazine and its readers. The icons can serve as great in-app icons for desktop or RIAs in the medical domain. With perspective and reflective effects these can be a real stunner on landing pages or in touch screen application menus.

You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed, rented, transferred or otherwise made available for use. Please link to this article if you would like to spread the word.

Over the last months we released a variety of icon sets, tools and templates, but now we would like to release something a bit different for a change. In this post we are glad to release Photoshop Keyboard Shortcuts, a PDF-file with a handy overview of most useful keyboard shortcuts available in Adobe Photoshop. The cheat sheet was created by Kenneth Setzer and released especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

The cheat sheet is a mousepad-sized image featuring a typical PC keyboard. Photoshop's keyboard shortcuts are listed for each key, with the shortcut and its icon printed on the individual key. In red is the shortcut you will get by hitting the key in combination with the Ctrl key. For example, typing "t" in Photoshop will activate the Type tool, while typing Ctrl+t will allow you to use the Transformation tool. Additional shortcuts requiring more than two keys are listed as well.

When you hear the word "creative", what type of profession comes to mind? Maybe a graphic designer, painter, sculptor, illustrator, or writer? It's unlikely that you would consider a "programmer" when thinking of creative fields of work. But programmers have the potential to be creative and come up with ideas or concepts that will impact others in positive ways.

We often turn to programmers to solve mathematical-related problems, but the concept of mathematics in programming is what powers programmers to innovate. When you think of mathematics you imagine numbers, expressions, and equations. But what about art, music, or even beautiful visuals? Those numbers and equations that we often view as mundane and overly-formulaic can generate beautiful visuals and music. This article will present dozens of examples of motion graphics and interactive visuals created with computational code, along with some useful references and resources.

We all have shortcuts that are essential to our daily workflow. A majority of them are staples such as Copy (Command + C) and Paste (Command + V), but occasionally we stumble upon a shortcut we wish we'd learned years ago. Suddenly, this simple shortcut has streamlined our process and shaved quite a bit of time off our day. Collected here are some lesser known but extremely useful shortcuts. Many of these are not documented in the "Keyboard Shortcuts" menu, and some of them don't even have equivalent menu options.

Please note that all of the shortcuts listed below assume that you are using Photoshop CS4 on OS X. They will work on the Windows platform by converting as follows: Command → Control and Option → Alt.

It's always nice to go to a bookstore, grab a book of logo designs, sit down, inhale that new-book smell and absorb the goodness. But knowing where all of these designs, fonts and creative elements have come from is also good. In this article, we look at modern art movements and a series of diverse logos inspired by those movements. You may be surprised by how easily these colors, shapes and strokes can be adapted to logo design. Have a look, see how logo design works and maybe even draw inspiration for your own creativity.

In 1919, the Bauhaus school was founded in Weimar Germany. More of a lifestyle than a school, Bauhaus was based on the static rules of Art Deco. One basic idea of the Bauhaus was to remove everything superfluous and break a design down to its essential elements. This static minimalism changed everything and can still be found in design today, such as in the logos of Faboo Taboo and Axion.

It is a most beautiful experience — the sounds and colors of fireworks in the silence and darkness of night. Words alone cannot describe such an experience. The sky comes alive with so many vibrant hues, starbursts, and showers of light along with ribbons of smoke, making us happy and awestruck. Photographing fireworks, however, is not an easy task.

To celebrate the beauty of fireworks, we present a showcase of beautiful fireworks photography. Each image is linked to the original photographer's page with their profile names — so you can view more of their work or even thank them for their contribution. And finally, remember to have a camera handy this coming New Year's Eve!

Today we are glad to release something extremely tasty — Yummy Icon Set, a set with 20 beautiful, original and sweet icons in resolutions 48×48px – 128×128px and formats .png, .ico, .incs and .tif. Also, the vector source (.eps) is available for free download as well. This set was designed by our friends Iconeden and released for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

Download the icon set for free! You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. Please link to this article if you want to spread the word.

The Christmas is coming and Christmas decorations are being prepared. However, it's not only time to spice up your living environment: your designs could use a bit of the Christmas spirit as well. A week ago our readers asked us to release a set of Christmas-related stock photos; so when a couple of days later Min Thu dropped us an e-mail suggesting to provide us with some Christmas stock photos, we just had to do it.

So, as requested, in this post we are glad to release Christmas Stock Photos Set, a set of 60 original Christmas-related photos in JPG in the resolution 2500×1666px. This set was created by Min Thu especially for Smashing Magazine and its readers.

Design is a fluid and shifting process in which layers are constantly modified and tweaked. As complexity builds, so does the need for preserving data in a flexible way. Learning non-destructive editing techniques helps you produce documents that bend along with your creativity. Photoshop Masks are the cornerstone of this process. Not only do they preserve important pixel data, but they allow for the creation of flexible interface elements as well. In this article, we'll explore the technical aspects and creative advantages of incorporating masks into your workflow.

Photoshop offers five methods of masking: Pixel Masks, Vector Masks, Quick Masks, Clipping Masks and Clipping Paths, all of which define pixel opacities without affecting the original data. Each of them has its own pros and cons, and knowing which method to use is extremely important for creating clean, flexible and properly masked layers.

Round-ups of beautiful and useful icons are almost legendary here, on Smashing Magazine. While some readers complain about the annoying "list"-style of some of our articles, we are confident that useful round-ups of relevant resources are very valuable and useful for designers. This is why over months we collect useful links and then present them in posts in the magazine. Like it or hate it, but the feedback that we get from the design community when we publish such posts is mostly positive which is why we keep doing it.

This round-up covers 50 beautiful and useful icons that may turn out to be life-savers for your next design. We present photorealistic icons, mini icons and pictograms, symbols and signs, free templates as well as Christmas icon sets and desktop replacement icons. Please make sure to read the license agreements before using the icons – they may change from time to time. Did you find this post useful? Would you like to see more similar posts in the future? Let us know in the comments to this post!

We have showcased different media of art and the different routes that you can take to express your creativity. We covered vexel artworks, graffiti, light paintings, handcraft, Moleskine art and many more. Now, to provide you with some fresh perspective, we decided to showcase a list of some inpisiring watercolor artworks. We believe that watercolor art is a very powerful way to express your feelings — in particular, watercolor can be effectively used to represent the artistic vision on a piece of paper. [Content Care Nov/21/2016]

Watercolor paintings are considered as a unique way to creatively represent dreams, illusions, emotions, and bright feelings using water-soluble pigments. This medium of art is still very popular nowadays, and therefore we have prepared a showcase of some really impressive watercolor artworks that will surely inspire you. So get ready to be fascinated by these brilliant and vibrant watercolor paintings and let us know what you think in the comments to this post!

Christmas is coming and, of course, it's just the right time to provide you with some nice freebies to fresh up your designs. To celebrate the holidays, our friends from IconEden designed "Smashing Christmas", a free icon set, dedicated to the design community and released especially for Smashing Magazine's readers. The set contains 39 beautiful, well-crafted icons with warm and welcoming color scheme. [Links checked February/10/2017]

All icons are designed in 3 different style: realistic 3D style, simple shape style and button style – hence the icons are extremely versatile. This set is available in both vector and pixel format and available for free download and use.

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